Poster Presentation 30th Lorne Cancer Conference 2018

Obesity related factors in relation to epithelial ovarian cancer survival in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study (#222)

Melissa A Merritt 1 , Elisabete Weiderpass 2 , Renée T Fortner 3 , Laure Dossus 4 , Elio Riboli 5 , Marc J Gunter 4
  1. University of Hawaii Cancer Center, Honolulu, HAWAII, United States
  2. Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  3. German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
  4. International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France
  5. Imperial College London, London, UK

Background: Recent studies have suggested that certain modifiable lifestyle factors, such as obesity, may influence epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) survival. A recent report from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium that pooled data from 21 case-control studies and included 12,390 invasive EOC cases observed that women who were obese (BMI>=35 kg/m2, pHR: 1.12 (95% CI: 1.01-1.25)) versus women in the normal weight range had a significant survival disadvantage (Nagle et al., 2015, Br J Cancer). With the exception of two studies in this report, this finding was based on retrospective self-reported weight that may lead to possible recall error that could attenuate the observed associations. Key questions remain about whether obesity-related factors influence survival among ovarian cancer patients. Furthermore, studies that are based on measured anthropometric data are needed to provide more reliable estimates.

Objectives: The current study investigated whether pre-diagnosis obesity-related factors (including anthropometric data that were measured by trained study personnel) influence ovarian cancer survival in a large European study of women with invasive EOC.

Methods: Information on anthropometric characteristics was collected at the study baseline. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and multivariable models were adjusted for age and year of diagnosis, tumor stage, smoking status and stratified by study center.

Results: Based on our previous analysis of reproductive factors and EOC survival, after a mean follow-up of 3.6 years (± 3.2 SD) following EOC diagnosis, 511 (49.9%) of the 1025 women died from EOC. Analyses are ongoing and results for the analyses of EOC as well as by histologic subtype will be presented.

Conclusion: EOC is the eighth most common cause of cancer mortality in women worldwide, and the most lethal gynecologic malignancy, thus studies focusing on modifiable obesity-related factors that may be associated with EOC prognosis are needed in order to contribute towards possible improvements in the prognostic outlook for these women.